What happened to my angel?

I don't know what happened to my sweet angel baby, but she has been replaced with a mouthy little girl who is testing every limit.  I always told people that I figured boys would be harder when they are little and get easier as they get older.  I expected the reverse to be true for girls.  Both my children are absolutely following that trajectory.

Don't get me wrong, Violet is still very adorable.  It's lucky for her that she is, because she has been really pushing my buttons.  To get her to do anything she doesn't want to do, I frequently have to count, "1...2..."  It's usually only when I get to what I mentally call "2 9/10" does she actually start to move.  Often, she doesn't make it to me getting to 3, and then she has to go in timeout.  Which she also frequently refuses to do, so she gets put in her crib, where she throws a massive temper tantrum.  It is exhausting and feels futile.  And I am over it.

Most of my friends have told me that the year their children turned three was the most difficult.  I can't remember if Jack was like this at all, but even if he was, it was likely to have been improvement to his two-year-old behavior.  When Jack used to have his tantrums, it was for sure difficult, but I think I had more patience because there was a sense that he couldn't help himself.  He honestly didn't know better.  With Violet, right now I feel like she does know better and she is just testing testing testing.  She does things that she knows she shouldn't; she doesn't do the things she knows she should; she's demanding, argumentative, and prone to hitting her brother.  What happened to my easy child??
 
Beyond that, she is just so sassy.  There was one time that we were having a playdate at our friends' house.  She somehow got it into her head that she didn't want Jack to come.

"Jack-Jack could not come," she kept saying over and over and over again.  (She frequently says "could not" when she either means "is not allowed to" or "cannot."  It can be funny.  Sometimes.)

At first I ignored her, because, what the heck, he's coming if I say he's coming.

But she kept repeating it until she was on my last nerve.  Finally I told her, "Violet, he's coming. That's final."

"But he could not!" she insisted.

"Violet," I said, exasperatedly, "who is going to win this?  Who is the boss?"

"Not you," she sassed.  "You're not the boss of the applesauce."

Wrong answer, little girl.

When she doesn't get her way, she gets this admittedly adorable angry face and then she un-adorably shoves or hits.  It rarely hurts, but if I ask her, "Did you just hit me?" she'll saucily say, "No, I just petted you."

She did, however, bite her brother out of anger, which is something Jack never did to another child.  Ever.

And it would be one thing if she confined her naughtiness to just her dad and me.  As challenging as Jack was for us at home as a toddler/pre-schooler, he's been nearly perfect in almost every instructional setting we've put him in.  Granted, he was a tad older than Violet was.  However, I don't think he's ever had to be disciplined for not listening.  Violet, on the other hand, has been put in timeout in two out of her last three swim classes for not following directions.

Still, I have to remind myself that she is still very small.  Today was her first day at vacation Bible school, and she looked so little compared to all the other kids.  It's the first time I've ever dropped her off for something like this (friends' houses for babysitting and the kids club at the gym while I'm on site don't seem to really count).  I could tell she was a little overwhelmed and bewildered by all the people there.  And, unlike Jack when he first went to VBS, she didn't know anyone else in her group.  I knew she would probably be all right, but I was also prepared for her to tell me that she didn't want to go back.

When I picked her up, she told me that she did have fun.  Honestly, I think the main draw was the snacks they provided.  Their sugar content met her exacting standards.  In any event, she said that she wanted to go back.  She was so proud of herself for going to Bible school on her own, she told all our friends today when we met up for an afternoon playdate before swim class.   And she promised me that she was a good listener for her teachers.

This was actually a fact that she saw fit to remind me of when I scolded her after her swim class for being put in timeout for not listening.  I feel like this is the first year that the swim instructors have been really uptight about all the children keeping both hands on the wall throughout the entire lesson.  Maybe I just didn't notice before because Jack just did it.  In any event, this is a directive that Violet has a particularly hard time obeying for the entire class.  And she is the one student that her teacher most wants to do this, since she is also the smallest.  Regardless, she needs to learn that she has to obey her teacher and that I will back him up if she doesn't.

I had told her prior to the start of the class that she had to listen to her teacher.  I told her that she needed to keep both hands on the wall the entire time.  I told her she would get a treat if she obeyed him, but that she would get no dessert if she didn't.  After the class, I told her that she wasn't getting dessert, because the teacher had to put her in timeout.

"But I listened to my Bible school teacher!" she protested, as if that should make it ok for her to not listen to her swim instructor.

Jack saw fit to pipe in that, of the two teachers, it was actually more important that she listen to the swim instructor, because she "could get really hurt" if she didn't.

"You could even D-I-E," he intoned, ominously.

Thanks, buddy, I think I got it, although I appreciated that he spelled it.

But, yeah, what he said, Violet.

I'm trying to convince myself that this is just a short phase.  If she's sassy and defiant now, she will turn into a respectful, docile teenager.  That's how it works, right?

Right??